In Need of a Better Storage/Backup Solution

[niteflyr]

I Currently have a 2012 Mini with 1.25TB custom fusion drive backed up by time machine on a 2TB ext. drive. I have ripped about 1/2 of my BR disks to MKV files stored on a 1TB ext. drive backed up by clone to another 1TB ext. drive I had. I mostly just stream my media to a single ATV3 on my big screen TV now. Everything is full now. Any ideas for an additional or better backup/storage solution that won't break the bank? Thanks.

 

[playtime66]

My MacMini Storage

I purchased the OWC Thunderbay 12G.
This is a thunderbolt external HD Housing that holds 4 hard drives and enables you to configure the drives however you wish. I have four 3T drives, the Thunderbay 16 has four 4T drives. I have mine configured into 3G of RAID 0 for my Media and 3G of RAID 0 for my general desktop files.

You can buy the Thunderbay bare or with drives.

Since installing it several months ago I have had no issues with it whatsoever.

This should last for many years.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I use a ProBox 4-bay USB 3.0 enclosure but any multi-bay enclosure will do fine.

Get a 3TB or 4TB disk to be your new Time Machine disk. Transfer your backup to the new disk, then remove the exclusion for your Media Disk (I'm assuming it's currently excluded from TM) and force a backup so that all your media is backed up to the 4TB disk

Erase your 2TB disk - it'll be your new Media disk. Then transfer all the media over to that.

New setup - 2TB disk is media, 3/4TB is time machine backing up both internal & media. Erase & sell the 1TB disks.

 

[blanka]

Was puzzling with this too, now I'm going to make a full server. It has become so cheap, it is even more affordable than multi-drive USB DAS cases.
You can get a fanless Intel 1037U board, with laptop-PSU, case and 4GB RAM for 150 bucks. Then you can put in 4 full 3,5 inch 3-4 TB drives, have dual gigabit and run a full debian linux server with Plex, mailbox, websites, mysql whatever you like. It will run all software you like for at least 10 years to come, where with NAS or DAS solutions you will depend heavily on support. If you want it to do recoding for mobile devices, you can spend a bit more on a J1900 or AM1 board, those are offering decent speed for transcoding too. All mentioned boards use around 10 watt idle, very little!

If you sell the AppleTV (attach your Mini to the TV, it is a better AppleTV anyway), it is almost costing you nothing.

 

[762999]

Was puzzling with this too, now I'm going to make a full server. It has become so cheap, it is even more affordable than multi-drive USB DAS cases.
You can get a fanless Intel 1037U board, with laptop-PSU, case and 4GB RAM for 150 bucks. Then you can put in 4 full 3,5 inch 3-4 TB drives, have dual gigabit and run a full debian linux server with Plex, mailbox, websites, mysql whatever you like. It will run all software you like for at least 10 years to come, where with NAS or DAS solutions you will depend heavily on support. If you want it to do recoding for mobile devices, you can spend a bit more on a J1900 or AM1 board, those are offering decent speed for transcoding too. All mentioned boards use around 10 watt idle, very little!

If you sell the AppleTV (attach your Mini to the TV, it is a better AppleTV anyway), it is almost costing you nothing.

I built two linux servers (with old computers).. I have 12TB in each in JBOD configuration. My second server mirrors the content of the master and I also have file history for 7 days (in case I delete something). Its cheaper than buying NAS enclosures. I can lose drive and disk controllers without impact.

I can transfer files around 180mb/sec. I have plex running on top and can access it from any pc/appletv/ios devices